BY MAISON GIROUX, THE MARQUETRY BY FERDINAND DUVINAGE, PARIS, CIRCA 1880

With its sumptuous ivory mosaic decoration, this jardinière is a fine example of the luxurious objets d'art created by the firm Maison Alphonse Giroux. Founded in Paris in the late 18th century, the Maison Giroux quickly evolved into one of the foremost purveyors of objets de luxe with a sophisticated clientele including Louis XVIII and Charles X. Under the leadership of Ferdinand Duvinage and his wife, Rosalie-Eléonore-Antoinette, they developed a special technique patented as ‘une mosaïque combiné avec cloisonnement métallique’ which is splendidly manifest in the present lot. These unique objects were first shown at the 1878 Exposition universelle in Paris. As Daniëlle Kisluk-Grosheide suggests, they are almost always marked and etched FD and Bté (short for ‘breveté’ or patent) and were likely created only between 1877, when the patent was granted, and 1882 when Madame Duvinage ceded her directorship of the firm (D. Kisluk-Grosheide, 'Maison Giroux and its 'Oriental’ Marquetry Technique’, The Journal of The Furniture History Society, vol. XXXV, 1999, p. 154, 162.).